When it first appeared in 1767, The Female American was called a "sort of second Robinson Crusoe; full of wonders." Indeed, The Female American is an adventure novel about an English protagonist shipwrecked on a deserted isle, where survival requires both individual ingenuity and careful negotiations with visiting local Indians. But what most distinguishes Winkfield's novel is her protagonist, a woman who is of mixed race. Though the era's popular novels typically featured women in the confining contexts of the home and the bourgeois marriage market, Winkfield's novel portrays an autonomous and mobile heroine living alone in the wilds of the New World, independently interacting with both Native Americans and visiting Europeans. Moreover, The Female American is one of the earliest novelistic efforts to articulate an American identity, and more specifically to investigate what that identity might promise for women. Along with discussion of authorship issues, the Broadview edition contains excerpts from English and American source texts. This is the only edition available.

Threads of Useful Learning: Westtown School Samplers is a thorough and engaging look at the needlework produced by students at this Philadelphia-area Quaker boarding school from its founding in 1799 until 1843, when sewing was removed from the curriculum. The needlework - including several types of samplers and embroidered celestial and terrestrial globes believed to have been made only at Westtown - is discussed in the context of the useful education and spiritual formation envisioned by Quakers for their children. Fully illustrated with pieces from Westtown School's own extensive textile collection as well as others in museums and private collections, this work enriches our understanding of this important schoolgirl needlework and the education, religious beliefs, and lives of the teachers and girls who created it.

The history from the 17th century offering a practical guide to the stitches.

Samplers were embroidered pictures made by girls, and occasionally boys, as part of their education. Scottish samplers are unique with regard to the amount of information that can be gathered from them. They often include the initials of extended family members as well as details of buildings, places and events, leading to the identification of almost all of these young embroiderers. Leslie Durst, an American with a passion for Scotland, has a collection of over 500 samplers dating from the early 18th to the late 19th century; a small section of them will be exhibited at the National Museum of Scotland. This book showcases these and reveals the stories behind many of them - embroidered records of two centuries of Scottish social history. Exhibition: National Museum of Scotland, Edinburgh, UK (26.10.2018 - 21.4.2019). --

First book to explore schoolgirl needlework of the Connecticut River Valley